


Ghost in Your Skin

by NorthernGhost



Series: The NoGho DLC Files [5]
Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Comfort, F/F, Fluff, Insecurity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:42:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24121522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthernGhost/pseuds/NorthernGhost
Summary: As Aloy has grown older, she has always known the inevitable day will come when she would look in a mirror and see a familiar face that wasn't hers in it. Today was that day.
Relationships: Aloy/Talanah Khane Padish
Series: The NoGho DLC Files [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1668388
Comments: 7
Kudos: 14





	Ghost in Your Skin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imagine0314](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagine0314/gifts).



> Based on an idea by imagine0314 while we were talking about ideas based on the little "universe" created from my _Living Systems_ and _The Devil Lies in the West_ series.
> 
> For fun, I suggested we each write our own interpretation of this scene and see how they differed. Here's mine, and check out imagine's take [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23644678/chapters/58059811).
> 
> Anyhow, it gets feelsy in here... oh, also, uh, M rating for safety.

“I don’t think you’ve been playing fair.”  


The aged redhead glanced across the counter of her shared apartment kitchenette, swirling a glass of dark red wine in one hand as she leaned into the stone surface.  


“I know I don’t, but why now?”  


Talanah grinned as she sipped at her own glass, leaning against the opposite side of the counter.  


“You bought me wine and food,” Aloy replied, glancing down at what remained of their dinner between them.  


“That’s not playing fair?” the dark-haired Carja scoffed. “Here I just thought I was being nice.”  


“It is,” the redhead replied, twirling the glass in her hand as she became acutely aware of the warm sensation in her face, “but I didn’t say I was mad about it.”  


Talanah laughed, downing the rest of her glass before sighing and placing it back on the counter.  


“So… what game am I apparently cheating at, then?” she said softly, raising her eyebrows.  


The redhead stared back at her with a grin for a moment before also draining the last of her glass and sidling around the counter to join the Carja, sliding in beside her so that their hips bumped.  


“Oh, just… one that can’t be played… _out here_.”  


Talanah’s eyebrows raised as Aloy grinned, looping a finger under the Carja’s sleeve and tugging on it as she began to lead her out of the kitchenette. As Talanah caught up to her, she felt the Carja wrap her arms around her middle, placing a kiss to the nape of her neck a moment later. Aloy grinned, but quickened her pace, forcing the other woman to laugh as she tried to keep up.  


A moment later, they barged through the door to their bedroom, Aloy reaching the edge of the bed before turning and falling into a seat on its side. As she faced the door, she found Talanah kicking it closed behind her, wincing slightly at the loud noise, before slipping across the gap between them, her hands quickly sliding onto the redhead’s shoulders.  


As she leaned her head back to stare up at the Carja woman before her, one of Talanah’s hands slid onto the side of her head, threading into the section of her hair that lay free from the braid that had been tied around the back of her head, starting just behind her temples. The redhead’s eyes slid closed as she hummed softly, the sound building deep in her chest.  


“Still cheating,” she muttered.  


“I _really_ don’t think that’s cheating,” Talanah purred, running her fingers through her wife’s hair, once again.  


Aloy hummed something that almost sounded like it had been intended to be words before suddenly leaning forward, turning her head to the side as she nuzzled her cheek into Talanah’s midsection, wrapping her arms behind her, as well. The Carja began to sink to her knees, bracing them atop the redhead’s as Aloy began to lean farther backward.  


A moment later, she had fallen onto the bed, Talanah catching herself on her hands so that she didn’t entirely collapse atop her, even as Aloy made a face, as if to pout.  


“It is still… _kind of_ a game,” Talanah whispered, leaning in close to her and placing a gentle kiss to the silver-streaked hair at her temple.  


Aloy made a soft, whimpering sound as the Carja woman laughed, but suddenly pushed herself off the bed, once again, despite the redhead’s hands reaching toward her. She simply smirked, however, and began to move around the end of the bed, Aloy quickly scrambling across the bed to kneel at the foot of it while Talanah approached the bureau in the corner of the room.  


As the Carja began to undo the tight design she had tied her hair into, Aloy quietly slipped from the bed, sliding across the floor to her just as Talanah finally released her raven mane, the hair falling loose around her shoulders as she sighed. Immediately, Aloy wrapped her arms around the Carja’s middle, nuzzling into the back of her shoulder as Talanah reached up to gently run a hand over the side of her head, her fingers gently tracing over her cheek.  


“It’s going to be hard to— _remove_ —anything else like this,” Talanah said softly.  


“I could help,” Aloy muttered, her voice still muffled by the Carja’s silk top.  


“Well, you’re not…”  


The redhead smirked, lifting her head from her shoulder, reaching for the ties at the front of the top.  


“It’s like you’ve done this before.”  


Aloy laughed, lifting her head to glance up at Talanah’s face, only for her to instead catch a different image in the mirror hanging from the inside of their bureau. Immediately, she froze, her eyes latching onto the hazel eyes, the wrinkles around her mouth, the streaks of silver at her temples, and for a moment she felt something like shock and panic take over her.  


It wasn’t her face in the reflection.  


But… it had to be.  


A shiver ran through her entire body as she suddenly pulled away from Talanah, slipping her hands over her face as she pressed her hands against it firmly, trying not to focus on how she was able to _feel_ all of the things she had seen before.  


It wasn’t her skin.  


It was just someone else’s that she was wearing.  


A moment later, she felt her legs hit the edge of the bed and she fell forward onto it, quickly burying her face in the sheets, as she curled in on herself, pulling her knees tightly toward her chest.  


The vague sound of a voice reached the back of her mind, but she couldn’t acknowledge it, or rather it couldn’t penetrate the whirlwind of thoughts and images and feelings that pressed at the inside of her skull. Part of her suddenly felt like she wanted to rip off all of her outer layers, keep going until she reached some part of her that she felt was truly hers and hers alone.  


Hands began to pull at her shoulders, attempting to remove her face from the fabric of the bed, but she refused to budge, instead burrowing deeper into the sheets.  


It had been inevitable, really, that one day she would look in the mirror and see that she had caught up. She had reached that point when, more than ever, the face in the reflection didn’t feel like her own.  


It wasn’t the first time she had experienced that sensation, memories of steel hallways of Zero Dawn and people calling her by another name floated back to her, but that had had a layer of distance that this didn’t have.  


She wasn’t suddenly in a new place. She wasn’t suddenly in a different body.  


She was in the same place she’d been for twenty-five years. She was in the same body she’d been in for forty-five.  


But it wasn’t _hers_.  


Finally, the grip on her shoulders managed to yank her from the bed, throwing her onto her back before applying pressure to hold her in place. The redhead blinked rapidly, her gaze finally focusing a face before her, and after another few moments, she realized that it was familiar, but not the one from the mirror.  


Talanah stared down at her, an expression somewhere between scared and concerned on her features. Her lips moved, but Aloy still couldn’t hear her, until the Carja suddenly shook her, the general sensation of _sound_ suddenly returning to her.  


“Aloy, talk! Say something!”  


“I-I…”  


The Carja sighed heavily, hanging her head for a moment and muttering some kind of thanks to the Sun, it sounded, before lifting her gaze to look at her, once again.  


“Are you okay? What happened?”  


Aloy opened her mouth to speak, but quickly fell silent as a tight feeling appeared in her chest.  


How was she supposed to actually describe what she had just felt?  


Finally, she shook her head, closing her eyes.  


“No, Aloy, don’t stay silent,” Talanah said, shaking her insistently. “Tell. Me.”  


Finally, the redhead sighed, opening her eyes once again.  


“I… the mirror…”  


“What about it?”  


“When… I saw the reflection… it… it wasn’t… _me_.”  


“What do you mean?”  


“That—my—face!” Aloy exclaimed, gesturing wildly toward the bureau in the corner.  


“No, I mean—if it wasn’t yours, then…?”  


Talanah trailed off, realization coming over her face as Aloy nodded, the corners of her eyes beginning to burn.  


“ _Hers_ ,” she managed, her voice strained by the tight feeling in her throat.  


The Carja woman sighed heavily as her head hung forward.  


“No, it’s not,” she said softly.  


“Of course it is!” Aloy snapped. “I’m just—”  


“No, it isn’t,” Talanah interrupted insistently, doing her best to shake her hair out of her face so she could stare down at the redhead’s eyes, meeting her gaze with an intensity, “and no, you’re not.”  


The redhead fell silent as she stared back up at the Carja over her, her jaw set as her pulse pounded firmly in her ears.  


“Aloy, I was… I was there, too, and… when I look at you, I don’t see her.”  


“You’re just—”  


“I’m not just saying it, Aloy!”  


The redhead cringed slightly under the intensity and volume of the Carja’s voice, prompting her to sigh heavily.  


“When I see you, I see— _you_ —the years we’ve lived, the smiles you’ve worn, the laughter you’ve given, and yeah, the frowns, the glares, the anger, the rage, the—confusion and the fear… all of that, but… not _her_.”  


Aloy swallowed heavily as she finally felt the tears begin to leak from the corners of her eyes, her lip trembling slightly as her jaw worked, as if trying to hold in the feeling building her chest. It was tight and uncomfortable and pushed against her ribs, and it left like…  


As a sob finally burst from her, it broke free.  


Talanah quickly leaned forward, gently placing kisses at the corners of the redhead’s eyes, along her cheekbones beneath them, and the corners of her mouth, before placing one final one against her forehead. As the Carja began to pull away, Aloy’s hands reached insistently for her sides, as best she could under the weight of Talanah’s hands on her shoulders.  


The Carja let her hands slide from the redhead, allowing herself to sink on top of her as Aloy wrapped her arms tightly around her. Talanah returned the embrace as best she could while continuing to pepper kisses across the redhead’s face, eventually moving to her temples, nuzzling her face beside hers for a moment.  


Soon after, however, the kisses resumed, the Carja’s lips slowly moving down the side of her face, and onto her neck. Aloy’s grip relented slightly as Talanah shifted her position, her lips pressing at the exposed skin revealed by the neckline of the silk top. The redhead relaxed her grip further as the silk garment was pulled over her head.  


A moment later, the kisses resumed, yet again, marching across her torso as the corners of her lips began to pull upward. Eventually, once the remaining portions of the redhead’s garments had been tossed aside and Talanah’s kisses had covered nearly every part of her body, the Carja crawled back onto the bed, bracing herself over her and grinning.  


“Believe me now?”  


Aloy squirmed slightly on the bed, working her hands behind her back and pulling her closer. As she did, the redhead pressed a slow, insistent kiss against her lips, finally pulling away after what felt like several minutes to reveal a broad grin on her face.  


“You cheated.”


End file.
